Have you noticed this app in your Developer folder? It is just cool. It lets you to create, within a minute, some verycrazyeffects.

Just be sure that you add layers over your original picture by clicking the lower Plus sign. Otherwise (by clicking the Plus sign next to the Reset button), you're adding effects under your picture. What I found cool is that you can save the work not only as JPEG or TIFF, but also as a Fun House project, which is a package including used picture(s) plus an XML file with values which you can use e.g. in Quartz Composer. Thanks, Apple, for a free Photoshop (nearly)!

[robg adds: I thought we'd mentioned this app before, but I didn't find it in a search. This program alone makes it worth installing the Dev Tools, in my mind. I've had a lot of fun playing with it ... though it does crash on me with some regularity. You really can make some nice compositions with it.]

There are already some apps using the same coreImage technology, which go beyond Funhouse. I especially like LiveQuartz, which is still a (stable) beta release but it's already quite amazing (you can add different layers, effects, as you like. Incredible!

My iBook doesn't have support for Core Image but that only mean that I can't render effects using my ATI Radeon. Instead most filters can be applied using CPU power. Ripple effect that you've mentioned is stricly GPU, so I don't see it - but it boders me not ;)

I found this app the first day I installed tiger. What amazed me is that all of the features work on my "unsupported" Mac. While some of the effects are slow and not real time a delay of 250 to 500 milliseconds is something I can live with. In fact using these in my favorite app of the developer package "Quartz Composer" I have made some killer screen savers that have audio input, processor load, midi information and DV input as sources, controls and modifiers for the screen savers. You can also make some pretty spiffy RSS visualizers like Apples.

Apples main RSS visualizer cannot be found. I have search high and low and I cannot find the mail "RSS Visualizer" in the screen savers list.